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April 24, 2006
Oblivion
Where have my weekends gone? Where has my after-work time gone? Oblivion. Not since the early days of EverQuest have I really been this enthusiastic and devoted to a game. I'm well into 110 hours in my primary saved game and that doesn't count the hours lost to stupid mistakes, roll-backs, occasional bugs and crashes, failed experiments, other characters and more. I'm easily looking at another 100 hours of enjoyment from this title.
DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) was fun for a while. The graphics are nice. The game is as faithful to the pencil and paper version as a persistent world massively multi-player online game could be. There's just a major short-coming. There's a severe lack of content. The entire game takes place in one city and a few remote locations (with insta-travel, yay!). But more on that later.
Interestingly, Turbine has more-or-less solved the Chinese Farmer problem in two ways. First, loot is not rare at all. It's not uncommon to see people giving away a decent magic item just because someone in the group wants it. Second, there's no indivual level grinding. The game has a modular feel to it. You and your group go through a specific adventure for a (somtimes predetermined) reward. There's no mob farming. There's no item camping. There's no point in buying anything on IGE with real money when it's so easy to get something in the game. Of course, this also means there's no player economy.
This module system, however, is exactly what turned me off from the game. The modules themselves are by and large good, interesting and entertaining. There are so few modules, though, that most of the game is spent repeating the same modules over and over again with diminishing returns on experience and eventually loot. What's more, groups tend to repeat the most rewarding (loot) modules over and over again so that effectively reduces the number of modules further. I mean, the Water Works series is fun--just not the 18th time I've run it.
DDO was definitely worth checking out, but it just can't hold a candle to the diversity, complexity and endless entertainment that Oblivion (and its thousands of mods) promises and delivers.
Posted at 11:40 AM | Comments (1)
April 07, 2006
Magic Boot Camp
Boot Camp [Apple] was recently released as a beta. It's slick! It's easy! And yes, it's only if you have one of the new ICBMs (Intel Chip-Based Macs). If you have an old G4 or G5, you don't get native Windows running on your box. I did a little testing of my 20" iMac (2GHz Intel Core Duo) and my main PC (Shuttle box with 3Ghz P4). The dual core smokes my old Windows box. OMGWTFBBQ!!!1 [UrbanDictionary] My Apple pwns my PC in its own arena!
I copied my Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion saved games to my ICBM and now enjoy a lovely widescreen, faster gameplay experience. I also tried out the Star Wars: Empire at War demo and it played well but didn't natively support widescreen, so the field was a bit stretched. The Apple MightyMouse is a terrible mouse for gaming. With a simulated two-button single button, there's no way to press both the left and right buttons at the same time--something crucial to PC gaming. I'll have to pick up another Logitech laser mouse for my Mac now.
I've also been voraciously watching all of the Cyril Takayama videos on YouTube. He's a French-Japanese, American-born street magician with tricks on par with David Blaine and Chris Angel. Truly amazing stuff. He also has an interesting Japanese accent. You can find many of his videos via a search for "japanese magic" Japanese Magic [YouTube].
Here's a video to whet the appetite, tho. I've watched this a gazillion times and it's still fun.
Posted at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2006
Feb 2006 Update
Ok, it's been too long since I've blogged, so let me just toss down a few misc things that have been happening.
I got a new 20" iMac with intel duo core. The machine is bitchin. It's really sexy. It's wicked fast (compared to my 15" G4 laptop at work). It's also a lot of fun. There are a few issues with some software not running well in Rosetta, but that was to be expected as an early adopter. I don't regret it one bit.
One of my christmas presents was Agile Web Development with Rails. Great stuff! I've been spending more time going thru this book on my new mac than gaming. This is momumental in my realm.
Altho I've been busy with Ruby on Rails, I still have played some games. D&D Online. It's quite impressive what they have done with getting the feel of a table top game into an online game. Of course, some things had to be changed, but the overall experience has been pleasant. The biggest drawback for me is that one can't really solo. But that makes sense. Table top RPGs aren't meant to be soloed. But if I'm going to sit in front of the computer and waste away the hours with an online game, I don't always want to be grouped with "Sir Killsalot". :P (Tho to be fair, the player names in DDO have been by and large much better than the other MMOs.)
Hilo Bay Cafe now has Cuban-style mojitos! Mmmmmmm. Love that rum and mint.
I've been rebuilding my wiki at work after the previous one was poorly developed (my fault), and the server was compromised. I really hate documentation, but it's just so damn handy when I need to go back to it later. I also have been improving the UH Calendar system which is now used by both UH Hilo and Kapiolani CC. Was fighting with a strange date/time bug yesterday, but I think I've gotten it squashed. Logic rewrites FTW!
I've played around with WordPress 2.0 and really like the slick new features. I'm seriously thinking about migrating from Moveable Type (again). We'll see. There will be changes to the blog if that happens, like no more direct emails of new posts. But with RSS, those are really not necessary anyway.
Posted at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2006
Russian Solitaire
Fall 2005 semester I took a computer graphics and gaming class. It was an intro class intended for non-computer science majors, but it was a programming class none-the-less. First we learned about computer graphics in the general and then started building games in Flash.
The graphics stuff was the basic bitmapped versus vector information which I was already familiar with. Bitmaps are pixel-based pictures like a photo. Vector graphics are defined by shapes and lines like a bar graph or line drawing. Obviously there's more complexity to it than that.
The meat of the class, however, was learning ActionScript to write simple games in Flash. This experience was much like cooking a full thanksgiving meal without oven mitts. Sure, you can get a lot done, but damn, it hurts. There is very little error checking. There is very little standards adherance (of any kind). There is a debugger which is only slightly more enjoyable to use than a chainsaw on your own limbs. And there is only so much vitriol I can contain for Flash as a programming platform without needing to curl up under my desk in the fetal position and whimpering softly for an hour.
Having gotten the ugly out of the way, there are a couple of success stories. Each assignment was completed and my final project was actually almost entirely successful! I wrote a version of solitaire (patience) based on what I understand are Russian rules. It's a tough game where one in fifty games won is normal. There are rules on the intro page, so without further ado, here's my implementation of Russian Solitaire in Flash. I highly recommend you maximize your browser window to get a better view of the cards, and yes, I know they're not fancy.
Posted at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2005
The Call of the Heroes
Our last table-top roleplaying game session didn't go so well. We were faced with an epic battle which included bringing some previous characters from the same campaign back from retirement to participate in the grand melee. However, a few fatal mistakes were made and the results were catastrophic.
While the entire campaign arc lasted about 15 months, I think the end of the campaign very much matched the tone throughout. From day two, our avatars were completely in over their heads. We were guppies in the ocean among sharks. While we managed to make waves, it was always at the behest of other wizards behind curtains, family Dons, or good ol' fashioned "oh shit, did we just do what I think we did?"
After investing so much into this campaign, it was decided to start anew and revisit a different genre: super heroes! We're going to give Mutants and Masterminds a try. Unfortunately, all this talk of super heroes (with the new campaign, Dane getting back into comics, and the new season of Smallville), my interest in City of Heroes has been rekindled. I reactivated my account and spent a good portion of this weekend reacquainting myself with the game.
It promises to be fun!
Posted at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
The new old campaign
This is an editted transcript of what transpired last night. A lot of it won't make sense unless you were there. You'll also notice that I'm not a proficient storyteller--sucks to be you. My character isn't Sheven, but that's how the story began.
Sheven awoke aboard a ship gently swaying in the calm seas south of Khorvaire. Blearily, he scanned the surprisingly plush sleeping quarters to see none of his normal travelling companions but saw several beds containing sleeping strangers draped in tattered gray robes. One, a human looking male, was heavily tattooed (a dragonmark), and the other, another man with vaguely odd yet entirely normal fascial features (a changeling). In the far corner of the room looked to be a makeshift workshop with the metallic body of a warforged man lying motionless on the table. Scanning further, he came to focus on Fizlar, his current employer, tending to several flasks stowed in cupboard above an empty bed nearby.
Sheven fought the soreness encompassing his entire body to sit upright as Fizlar approached with an obvious sense of curiosty. Fizlar looked him over several times looking both puzzled and disturbed, produced a few potions which eased the pain, and began discussing his displeasure about the three strangers. Apparently, the warforged had killed Fizlar's brother during the war a few years back and the other two were associates of the metal man. Fizlar matter-of-factly explained that Sheven's former companions, including his dear sister, had been sacrificed to return the souls of these strangers to the living realm, yet he was puzzled why Sheven yet remained alive.
Now without family, and a solo employee of Fizlar's, Sheven was offered a new job, most likely out of pity, as security chief of operations. Still dazed and sore, he blandly accepted and fell in silent grief at his tragic loss. Fizlar saw the discussion wasn't going to continue and gathered some notes from the workshop table and left the quarters.
After a bit of a rest, Sheven attempted to feed water to the dragonmarked and the changeling but neither stirred. He looked inside an open panel on the warforged but couldn't make heads or tails of the strange mechanics so he left the quarters looking for food. Finding a couple of helpful sailors Sheven managed some bread and water which gladly ate before retiring back to bed for quiet contemplation.
Several hours later...
Fizlar appeared looking far more concerned about the strangers than he and said seemly as an afterthought, "Sheven, it's good of you, but you do not have to watch them." Sheven retorted that given his new charge as chief of security, it was rather appropriate behavior, but each knew his thoughts were of his departed sibling. Fizlar quietly fed both the changling and dragonmarked man the entire contents of two potions and again left the room.
Just after the door closed, the tattooed man carefully and slowly peered about his surroundings. Sheven introduced himself and the two quickly fell into conversation about the recent events and the machine that had killed Sheven's companions and restored Malfoy, the dragonmarked, Ren Bix, the changling, and Bosh, the warforged.
After failing to wake Ren Bix, Malfoy studied some of the notes on the worktable and managed to reactivate Bosh. Convinced by their desire not to face certain retribution, torture and unpleasantness at the hands of the obviously unscrupulous Fizlar, Sheven agreed to attempt an escape after nightfall. The new party armed themselves with makeshift weapons, diluted the remaining flasks of sleeping potions and returned to former positions, resting and awaiting the darkness.
Several hours later...
Fizlar returned with a tray of food and force fed the feigned unconscious Malfoy and the truly unconscious Ren Bix the diluted elixirs and left Sheven to eat. The three managed to waken Ren Bix who was brought up to speed on the recent events and the plan of departure.
Sheven, Malfoy and Ren Bix managed to sneak to above deck, unsecured a lifeboat and waited for Bosh to join them. As expected, Bosh's clanking metal body attracted the night watch which began sounding alarms. Bosh rushed to the lifeboat which the group then released. As they drifted from the ship, Malfoy incanted a massive fireball which he hurled to the gathering crewmen as a parting gift. The fugitives watched the ship burn as they paddled away.
Luck continued with the group as sunrise brought them a few of one of the many islands known to scatter the region between the continents Xen'drik and Khorvaire. They dragged paddled towards the beach and as they dragged the lifeboat ashore, everyone was quite startled at the sounds of entire trees snapping. From the beach-front forest rang two voices.
"What do we have here?"
A massive two-headed ogrish creature emerged from the brush and answered it's own question with a blood-thirsty grin, "I don't know." Malfoy and Bosh, prior to their reversed demise, had visited some of the islands in this area and had failed to garner the friendship of an ettin clan. In fact, they had dispached several of the clan's number.
This particular ettin was certainly not the welcoming committee and charged the beleagered group baring teeth and branishing a partial tree trunk as a club. Despite their fatigue, the ettin was bested and the group settled to plan their next course of action.
Posted at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)